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Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

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Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#11

Post by cdchn »

visarga wrote: post #8
tentacleuno wrote: post #2

https://archive.is/QGs6x

Wondering why archive.is is ok to replicate articles beyond paywalls while chatGPT got sued for a few unintentional regurgitations. Should there be a "protect it or lose it" rule for copyright as in trademarks?

I'm not sure if archive.is leverages this (I doubt it has a huge database of paid accounts) but a lot of sites put up full content versions of their sites so search engines can scrape them, so there may be some legal shimmying about taking that search engine version and making it available to regular human eyeballs.

Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#12

Post by throwup238 »

mauvehaus wrote: post #10

How does this fit into the wider picture of steelmaking with electric arc furnaces? Those have been around for a good long while; what can this do that an electric arc furnace can't? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_arc_furnace

Pretty much nothing, at least for steel. You still need the carbon to incorporate into the alloy so like arc furnaces, they can only be used with mostly scrap material. That’s why steel makers still use coal. They need the coke.

Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#13

Post by dredmorbius »

kukkamario wrote: post #5
quaintdev wrote: post #4

But how efficient is it? I don't see that info in the article.

Well it is just a brick that can acts as a heating element. In terms of converting electricity to heat it is almost 100% efficient like every other electric heating element. I didn't spot any mention of voltage requirements for that so maybe it requires so high voltage that cause it to be a bit harder to actually use.

Agreeing with the above, also relevant:

- Heat pumps typically achieve better than 100% efficiency, though at modest temperatures (slightly above ambient room temperatures), and would be better suited to most space-heating applications.

- The key achievement of the described technology is very high temperature applications, such as metals smelting, though what advantages the described tech has over existing electric arc furnaces (utilising graphite electrodes, cheap and abundant and capable of 3,000 °C temps) is less than clear.

Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#14

Post by Retric »

XorNot wrote: post #7
thinkingkong wrote: post #6

If these systems have enough thermal mass then maybe you could even power them with solar or daily offset cheaper power in another storage mechanism. Between this and the newer co2 reduction technologies in kilns we might be close to finding ways to build combined steel and cement factories that have massively reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

That's just inefficient solar thermal though. If you want to do that you'd be better off using parabolic mirrors to heat regular fire bricks directly. These are unique it seems because they're durable electric heating elements that can hit industrial process temperatures and might be cheaper then alternatives?

It requires full sun to hit steal melting temperatures which is unreliable in many industrial areas. So you need a backup.

You can also easily move electrical power long distances but parabolic mirrors are hard to integrate into existing industrial processes and locations. PV electricity is competitive with fossil fuels even if you ultimately just want heat.

Solar thermal is far more viable for low grade heat. Especially as energy storage is fairly trivial.

Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#15

Post by distortionfield »

XorNot wrote: post #7
thinkingkong wrote: post #6

If these systems have enough thermal mass then maybe you could even power them with solar or daily offset cheaper power in another storage mechanism. Between this and the newer co2 reduction technologies in kilns we might be close to finding ways to build combined steel and cement factories that have massively reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

That's just inefficient solar thermal though. If you want to do that you'd be better off using parabolic mirrors to heat regular fire bricks directly. These are unique it seems because they're durable electric heating elements that can hit industrial process temperatures and might be cheaper then alternatives?

They don’t even necessarily need to be cheaper than all existing methods. They only need to be cheaper than (IMO inevitable) carbon tax penalties plus the cost of these bricks compared to current methods, which is a rapidly falling curve.

Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#16

Post by [deleted] »

visarga wrote: post #8
tentacleuno wrote: post #2

https://archive.is/QGs6x

Wondering why archive.is is ok to replicate articles beyond paywalls while chatGPT got sued for a few unintentional regurgitations. Should there be a "protect it or lose it" rule for copyright as in trademarks?

[deleted]

Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#17

Post by szvsw »

specialist wrote: post #9

Neat. We need more "box of hot rocks" thermal storage solutions. It's fun to compare and contrast strategies, as startups explore and define the problem space. For example: Fourth Power is a heat to electricity solution. It uses graphite bricks (up to 2400°C), liquid metal for plumbing, and thermophotovoltaic cells. https://gofourth.com/our-technology/ Electrified Thermal Solutions is an electricity to heat solution.…

antora also is a promising thermal pv company - heat up some carbon blocks resistively when clean power supply exceeds demand, then convert back to elec during peak demand or outages via pv panels operating on IR. Hopping container form factor. interesting partnerships w NREL and other gov partners.

https://antoraenergy.com/

Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#18

Post by s1artibartfast »

distortionfield wrote: post #15
XorNot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just inefficient solar thermal though. If you want to do that you'd be better off using parabolic mirrors to heat regular fire bricks directly. These are unique it seems because they're durable electric heating elements that can hit industrial process temperatures and might be cheaper then alternatives?

They don’t even necessarily need to be cheaper than all existing methods. They only need to be cheaper than (IMO inevitable) carbon tax penalties plus the cost of these bricks compared to current methods, which is a rapidly falling curve.

>They don’t even necessarily need to be cheaper than all existing methods.

That doesn't make sense. Why would anyone use them instead of the more efficient alternatives? For artistic reasons?

Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#19

Post by s1artibartfast »

specialist wrote: post #9

Neat. We need more "box of hot rocks" thermal storage solutions. It's fun to compare and contrast strategies, as startups explore and define the problem space. For example: Fourth Power is a heat to electricity solution. It uses graphite bricks (up to 2400°C), liquid metal for plumbing, and thermophotovoltaic cells. https://gofourth.com/our-technology/ Electrified Thermal Solutions is an electricity to heat solution.…

This is an article about Electrified Thermal Solutions.

Re: Electrically conductive bricks can replace fossil fuels in industrial processes

#20

Post by szvsw »

XorNot wrote: post #7
thinkingkong wrote: post #6

If these systems have enough thermal mass then maybe you could even power them with solar or daily offset cheaper power in another storage mechanism. Between this and the newer co2 reduction technologies in kilns we might be close to finding ways to build combined steel and cement factories that have massively reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

That's just inefficient solar thermal though. If you want to do that you'd be better off using parabolic mirrors to heat regular fire bricks directly. These are unique it seems because they're durable electric heating elements that can hit industrial process temperatures and might be cheaper then alternatives?

Well like you said the resistive heating is what sets it apart, and still makes it potentially useful as a thermal ESS because of the classic duck curve even if it's not the primary use case. Soak up excess elec during midday as heat in batteries, use TPV to convert IR back to elec during evening peak or outages. Antora (eg) does this with carbon blocks in shipping container sized units. Would be more desirable/flexible to do a setup like that where the TESS is just another prosumer on the electrical grid rather than using parabolic mirrors+firebricks which can't be used for time delaying supply. Can't speak to the pros/cons of this vs carbon block thermal batteries but still a potential avenue.
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